In the Greek/Arabic tradition, the Wednesday night of Holy Week is when the Service of Holy Unction is served. Is this the case in those churches that follow the Slavic typicon?

Also, does any church celebrate the Orthros that night for Holy Thursday? I've always wanted to do that service but it's never come to be to my disappointment.

There are a number of variations to what is done on Wednesday of Holy Week. As a general rule Holy Unction is not performed during Holy Week in Slavic parishes. Wednesday of Holy Week has become the traditional day to perform the Unction service in the Greek tradition. There is a link to the renewal of other sacrements during Wednesday and Thursday of Holy week with the old unction being burned away during the service and replaced by fresh, just as the next morning the reserve sacrament is replaced and in years like this Chrism is made. Something I have noticed happening in parish in the last few years (and my understanding is that it is based off of the modern practice in Greece) is that Unction is served in the early afternoon and the Orthros is served in the evening with anointing at the end of Orthros.

Yes, my experience in the GOAA is consistence with what "arimithea" wrote in his reply above.

Several years ago, our former metropolitan visited my parish Great Wednesday evening, and asked us to serve the Great Thursday Orthros. We had celebrated the Sacrament of Holy Unction Wednesday afternoon, and we anointed the faithful with the Unction after the Wednesday Bridegroom Orthros. Our metropolitan told us, "I am a monk and must serve the Orthros this evening." He even thanked the congregation for making this adjustment.

Over the course of the past two decades or so within the OCA and ACROD, the Holy Unction service has become a 'regular' part of the Holy Week schedule. I don't know about the practice within the UOC-USA however or the Serbs.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

My parish does Holy Unction on Wednesday evening (last year with Met. Jonah) and, for comparison, by previous BCC parish also had it on Wednesday evening and, IIRC, the Monastery of the Holy Cross in DC had it on Wednesdays, too, when I lived down that way and went there regularly.

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The Unction service has become quite popular, second in attendance only to the Vespers of Great Friday. That's a good thing as far I can see.

I learned over the decades that what was done in my little corner of the world when I was young is not necessarily the way all do things and it certainly appears that among the various Orthodox national and monastic traditions the time frames for and scheduling of many of the Holy Week services are not cast in stone. Thus, I am all for 'moving' the Passion Gospels/Strasti to another time and encouraging the celebration of Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil at a time on Holy Thursday for more of the faithful to participate as it commemorates the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper and prepares us for the events of Great Friday.

It's served on Holy Thursday morning too. (In Bulgaria, the Vesperal Liturgies for Christmas and Theophany Eves, as well the Presanctified Liturgies are also served in the morning only).

The Rusyns, both Greek Catholic and Orthodox in Europe do the Vesperal liturgies for Christmas and Theophany eves, as well as the Holy Thursday and Saturday ones in the morning. Presanctified are in the evening in this tradition however.

One of the problems with 'unity' in America is that we all have traditions which are 'Orthodox' and somehow our Bishops will need to be wise enough not to impose their personal 'praxis' preferences by fiat upon their new Dioceses when that occurs. Otherwise we will fall apart into the good old 'my Orthodoxy is more Orthodox' than is yours.

I've thought that if the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North America were able to design a pan-Orthodox unified administration plan, it would have to allow parishes to maintain the Typicon and practices of its current ecclesial jurisdiction, and that the national central office, through the synod, would have to provide some sort of control for each jurisdiction to maintain the Typicon it used prior to the unified administration, if the ACOB enthroned diocesan bishop attempted to change a parish's practice that exists due to the previous historical jurisdiction the parish was under. Such a control mechanism would need to exist for the foreseeable future.

I've thought that if the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North America were able to design a pan-Orthodox unified administration plan, it would have to allow parishes to maintain the Typicon and practices of its current ecclesial jurisdiction, and that the national central office, through the synod, would have to provide some sort of control for each jurisdiction to maintain their Typicon, if the ACOB enthroned diocesan bishop attempted to change a parish's practice that exists due to the previous historical jurisdiction the parish was under. Such a control mechanism would need to exist for the foreseeable future.

Works in theory, but all of our experiences collectively - regardless of our jurisdictional history as Orthodox or if our families were, or were not from a Greek Catholic background prior to embracing Orthodoxy - instruct us that an individual Bishop, once elected and enthroned, may deliberately choose to determine the 'proper' course of action as he sees fit - even if his presiding Metropolitan or Archbishop has a contrary view - including 'praxis' and discipline - within his own Diocese. I need not repeat all of the individual cases or examples that have occurred over the years. Thanks be to God that most of our Bishops are enlightened, wise and humble men - but clergy, hierarchs and laity combined will have to work long and hard to come up with safety mechanisms to ensure this concept can work. It will indeed take time.